Uni Prof Defends Rape in "Thought Experiment"

[alba]

patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2013/04/rochester-university-professor-defends-rape-of-unconscious-people.html

[RosyDaisy]

This is sickening and disgusting. I need to go throw up my breakfast now.

[sparkles]

Intellectually, I know it is 100% WRONG to want bad things to happen to people, but emotionally, I really do think that the only way SOME people will actually GET IT is if those same bad things actually DO happen to them. And that includes you, Professor Landsberg. Try this "thought experiment," you asswipe. Think about how YOU would feel if you were rendered unconscious and used, abused and humiliated as if you were nothing more than a blow-up doll while the rest of the world got to join in via Twitter. How about if it happened to your wife? Your daughter? Maybe even your son? No actual damage there, right? So you can just go on with the rest of your life with nothing more than a "la di dah." I don't fucking think so.

I hate the world sometimes. It just seems like we're losing at every turn. :cry:

[browngrl]

Here's a "thought experiment": Let us suppose that this professor is raped while unconscious...there is no physical damage or disease transmission. Then let us ask what are the odds that the professor will feel horrified and violated?My guess? I'll bet that this professor would 100% feel horrified and violated - which is only because rape is always horrifying and violating.

edited because I do my best proofreading AFTER I post

[salex]

Here's a "thought experiment": Let us suppose that this professor is raped while unconscious...there is no physical damage or disease transmission. Then let us ask what are the odds that the professor will feel horrified and violated?My guess? I'll bet that this professor would 100% feel horrified and violated - which is only because rape is always horrifying and violating.

edited because I do my best proofreading AFTER I post

I suspect this professor should never drink anything again except out of bottles he himself opens. Not sure he should eat anything he doesn't prepare himself, either, as he quite frankly has told people that if they knock him out, they are free to do anything to him they'd like.

At least we know what his fantasy life entails. I would suggest that this is reposted, so that at women who google him in the future get this as the first hit when his name is searched. That way, they are warned.

[MonkeyMomma]

His mother must be so proud. I fucking hate the world sometimes.

[rward]

So I can do any damn thing I please in his home, as long as I do it when he's not there and clean up after myself?

Good to know.

[Flossie]

I hit the link, but didn't get the article. What did it say?

[rward]

That if you rape an unconscious woman and don't give her a disease or get her pregnant, it's not even rape.

[Claddagh]

Color me disgusted.

I always want to tell these people that if someone cannot give consent it is rape. It is a violation no matter what.

[2xx1xy1JD]

In some ways, the most valuable lesson that I learned at university was that the fact that someone is a tenured professor does not mean that they are necessarily wise, moral or sane, and that disagreeing with them isn't necessarily a sign that you didn't understand the full wisdom of their lecture - it could also be a sign that you have a brain and that they are wrong.

It is a lesson that Prof. Landsberg's students are hopefully learning.

It is nearly impossible to get a tenured professor fired, so I don't see that happening. What I can hope for is that his students realize that economists are not experts in law, ethics, medicine, psychology, women's studies, criminology or any other field that would actually be relevant to the definition of rape and assessment of its harms. I can hope that they can learn how to take apart arguments like this, spot the false analogies and the false premises, point out the very real harms that result and articulate great arguments to make it clear that lack of consent = no consent = rape.

Unfortunately, Prof. Landsberg was not a rare loon. If you want proof that we need to be able to articulate just why we have the right to bodily integrity even while unconscious, read this:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/hea ... le4325965/

Yes, the policy changed - in 2010. Until then, while these exams were not that common, there was no official objection to them. Consent was simply implied by the fact that the patient was in a teaching hospital.

[danvillebelle]

Oh-em-gee. Pardon me while I puke (preferably in the lap of the professor).

When I was 15, my boyfriend drugged and raped me while I was semi-conscious. There isn't enough room on this page to write about the havoc it has wreaked on my mental health and my sexuality. Somehow I have the feeling that if the scenario happened to his daughter, he wouldn't be quite so smug.

Unbefuckinglievable.

[PennySycamore]

The students at the University of Rochester have demanded that Professor Landsberg be censured which he should definitely be.

[salex]

So I can do any damn thing I please in his home, as long as I do it when he's not there and clean up after myself?

Good to know.

exactly my thought when my hubs and I were talking about it this morning.

[VooDooChild]

Is this ass married? Does he have children? Please tell me that someone in his life has called him out on his bullshit and he has been/will be made to feel like the stupid, brainless, jerk he is.

[salex]

patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2013/04/rochester-university-professor-defends-rape-of-unconscious-people.html

Ok this guy has a history of douchebaggery

In March 2012, Landsburg supported some of pop radio personality Rush Limbaugh's attacks against a Georgetown University student, Sandra Fluke[14] Fluke spoke before Congress advocating mandating birth control coverage in some insurance programs, citing their use in preventing ovarian cysts. "There are really good arguments for subsidizing and bad arguments for subsidizing [birth control]," Landsburg said during an interview with WHAM-TV. "However, [Fluke] didn't bother to make any. She made no argument. She simply said she wanted it subsidized."[15] On his blog, Landsburg discussed Limbaugh's calling Fluke a "slut", and said "A far better word might have been 'prostitute' (or a five-letter synonym therefor), but that’s still wrong because Ms. Fluke is not in fact demanding to be paid for sex...The right word for that is something much closer to 'extortionist'."[16]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Landsburg not breaking the link because it is wikipedia Per wiki he has a daughter

[PennySycamore]

Ok this guy has a history of douchebaggery

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Landsburg not breaking the link because it is wikipedia Per wiki he has a daughter

To call Professor Landsberg an asshole is to insult the orifice.

[Guest Anonymous]

OK... This guy can fuck right off!

I was prepared to read about an actual, meaningful thought experiment. I believe that thought experiments, no matter how controversial, are useful and important. This is just bullshit. He questions whether rape that involves 'no direct physical harm' should be illegal. Find a single rape that involves 'no direct physical harm'! A rapist is doing something to someone's body without their consent. Rape is an attack. That is direct physical harm. It doesn't matter if there is no bruising or tearing or bleeding or pregnancy or STD. It doesn't matter if the rapist would like to believe that they aren't really doing any harm. The act is harm.

What comes through clearly is the professor's desire to believe that there can be rape without consequences. He seems to desperately want to believe that there is a form rape that isn't really rape. Why?

This guy can go and fuck himself (as long as there is no direct physical harm, of course :roll:).

[alba]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/hea ... le4325965/

Yes, the policy changed - in 2010. Until then, while these exams were not that common, there was no official objection to them. Consent was simply implied by the fact that the patient was in a teaching hospital.

That really, really makes me feel ill. Personally, I'd prefer any pap smear to be done while I was unconscious, but I would damn well be consenting to it and know what was happening beforehand. I'm really, really glad I've never had surgery in Canada, otherwise I'd be sitting here wondering if it ever happened to me.

[Flossie]

I finally got the article to show and this guy is heinous! I wonder if he'll feel the same way if someone spikes his drink and a few people invade his orifices, take pictures, pose with his nude body, pee on him etc. Then pass around the pics and subject him to public ridicule for a few days before finally informing him of what had occurred. After what he wrote, he'd probably have a very difficult time prosecuting because he actually uses himself as an example at one point and says that in his view he shouldn't expect to be able to punish people for things he has no memory of. I suggest that any women who find themselves next to him at a bar or a party should be very careful of anything he offers them. I think he's dangerous.

[itsnikki05]

I.... have no words. I sure hope that guy gets fired over this. And I hope he NEVER had to experience the horror of rape.

[burntnorton]

OK... This guy can fuck right off!

I was prepared to read about an actual, meaningful thought experiment. I believe that thought experiments, no matter how controversial, are useful and important. This is just bullshit. He questions whether rape that involves 'no direct physical harm' should be illegal. Find a single rape that involves 'no direct physical harm'! A rapist is doing something to someone's body without their consent. Rape is an attack. That is direct physical harm. It doesn't matter if there is no bruising or tearing or bleeding or pregnancy or STD. It doesn't matter if the rapist would like to believe that they aren't really doing any harm. The act is harm.

What comes through clearly is the professor's desire to believe that there can be rape without consequences. He seems to desperately want to believe that there is a form rape that isn't really rape. Why?

This guy can go and fuck himself (as long as there is no direct physical harm, of course :roll:).

I know. It wasnt even a thoughtful thought experiment. It read like the adolescent spoutings of some alienated teenager passing through the stage when you mistake being shocking for being rational, origunal, and brave. Not coincidentally, this is the same stage where boys fall in love with Ayn Rand. Whose sexual imagery is like a case study in rape culture.

He should be fired for incompetence, if nothing else.